


Bound by their being

by kawuli



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Dubious Consent, Gen, Qunari, character does not understand consent as a concept, everything is implied nothing is explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 03:48:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20370178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kawuli/pseuds/kawuli
Summary: A plague must cause suffering for as long as it endures,Earthquakes must shatter the land.They are bound by their being.Asit tal-eb. It is to be.--The Qun, Canto 4A child becomes Saarebas. Saarebas follows Arvaarad.And if Arvaarad is not worthy of following?





	Bound by their being

The girl was ten when it happened. She was building a barracks with sticks and wire when one of the boys came over and stomped it flat. 

"Get off!" she yelled, and shoved him. Sparks jumped from her fingers and he screamed, fell to the floor, shaking as though it was cold. 

Tama was at her side at once, big hand locking around the girl's upper arm, pulling her back. "Imekari," Tama snapped, and her voice was usually comforting, but now it was sharp and hard. "Come with me." 

They walked out of the classroom, down the hall, past the sleeping rooms, all the way out of the building. Tama's jaw was clenched tight, her eyes straight forward. "Has that happened before?" she asked.

The girl was too frightened to speak, so she shook her head.

"Imekari," Tama said, and now she looked down. "Answer me."

"No, Tama," the girl whispered. "What was it?" 

"Magic," Tama answered, her voice softening just a bit. "You have been shown your purpose. Yours is a difficult path, and others must guide you." 

"How can I have magic?" the girl asked. "Only Saarebas has magic."

"You are Saarebas now. Saarebas-Eva."

"But Saarebas talk to demons--I have never seen a demon! I was angry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt him, I can be good!"

"Are you questioning your tamassran?" Tama stopped, looked the girl in the eye. 

The girl bit her lip, shook her head. "No," she said. She knew the answer, they all did. "The tamassran's role is to know, to instruct, to guide. The role of a child is to follow." 

"Good," Tama started walking again, quickly, across the wide courtyard. It was quiet--the children would have outdoor time in the evening, when it was cooler. They reached a gate, which was opened by two guards, then closed behind them. 

Now they walked toward the soldiers' quarters. The girl knew better than to ask why. Girls weren't soldiers--but Saarebas weren't girls. They were--she didn't know. Only men formed the Antaam. Saarebas, leashed by Arvaarad, fought with the Antaam. Did this mean she was a boy? She didn't think she was, but until now she hadn't thought she was Saarebas either. She had been wrong. (Had she? How could she be such a dangerous thing and not know? Could it be a mistake? No. The tamassran's role is to know, to instruct, to guide. The tamassrans do not make mistakes.)

They walked past several long timber-framed barracks to a small stone tower, close up against the city's wall. The heavy door was closed, until Tama knocked and it swung in, revealing Arvaarad. He was huge--his shoulders filled the width of the doorway, and his horns swept back and up, just fitting under the lintel. 

"Arvaarad," Tama said. "This child is Saarebas-Eva. I bring her to you for instruction." 

Arvaarad nodded. "Come," he said, stepping to the side. 

Tama let go of the girl's arm. The girl looked up, blinking fast to keep from spilling tears. Tama just nodded, put her hand between the girl's shoulder blades, and pushed just enough to remind the girl that she had been given an instruction. 

The girl walked through the doorway and did not look back.

"Come," Arvaarad said again, and the girl followed him down the hallway to another closed door. Arvaarad unlocked the door, opening it into a wide room. Here, for the first time, there were others. Groups of children, each with a Saarebas and an Arvaarad. 

Arvaarad led the girl to join one of the groups. As they got close, the group stopped what they were doing and turned to watch.

"Saarebas-Eva is joining you," Arvaarad said. Then he turned and walked away.

The other children looked about her age. Saarebas wore collar and cuffs and chains, his mouth unsewn but scars on his lips saying it once had been. The children wore cuffs of leather at their wrists, thin metal chains circling their necks, shining strangely, like oil on water. 

"Come. You will not cast today," Arvaarad said. "Stand behind the others and watch." 

The girl did. Sarebaas spoke softly, so quiet the girl could barely hear, then clapped his hands together before pulling them a finger-width apart. A ball of lightning formed between his palms, cracking and spitting. The girl felt her fingers tingling in response, clasped her hands together and tried to make it stop. But the feeling grew stronger until she yanked her hands apart and shook them, sending sparks flying out like water droplets after a wash. 

She didn't see Arvaarad move, but suddenly he held a shining rod and every part of her body was on fire. On fire, and freezing, and she fell, curled on her side and tried to breathe. When the pain finally released her she was crying, huge gasping sobs like an infant. She was ashamed, but she couldn't stop.

Arvaarad grabbed the girl's wrist, pulled her to her feet. "Come," he said, almost dragging her toward the door. 

They walked down a dim hallway and into a small room, full of ...things. Tools, hides, damaged armor, a length of chain looped over a hook on the wall. "Stay there," Arvaraad said, leaving her in the doorway and stepping into the room.

He came back with leather cuffs like the ones the other children were wearing, and a length of thin chain. He wrapped the cuffs around her wrists, tied them, and fastened the chain around her neck. They tingled, hot and cold against her skin, a pale echo of what she'd felt earlier. 

"What is it?" she asked, so surprised she forgot, for a moment, to be frightened. Arvaarad stepped out of the room, closed the door, and started walking down the hall. The girl didn't think he was going to answer her, but then he spoke.

"Saarebas is always a threat, and always in danger. Like any dangerous animal, it must be leashed." He stopped, held up a metal rod for her to see. "This is the Leash."

The girl shivered. She remembered.

"But even that is not enough." They started walking again. "Saarebas must be restrained, so its power is not released unknowingly."

The girl touched the chain at her neck. 

"Yes," Arvaarad said. "You are Saarebas-Eva, your power is small, so your restraints are as well. They grow as you grow." 

They were back to the training room now. The girl took her place behind the other children, and this time, when the others made lightning, her hands tingled--fire and ice, ice and fire--but no sparks left her fingers.

* * *

The girl grew. As Arvaarad promised, so did her restraints. By the time she was assigned to a Karatam, she wore the heavy collar, shackles and chains of a true Saarebas, and she was proud of them. Proud of the healed scars where once the shackles had worn the skin on her wrists raw and bleeding. Proud of the rough skin and hardened muscle that let her stand tall in the heavy collar. Proud that she had proven herself trustworthy enough that her lips were still unsewn. 

The others in the Karataam were not friendly--as they should not be--but after the first battle they fought together, Arvaarad told her she had done well, and removed her restraints long enough for her to bathe, to rub ointment onto the stubs of her cut horns, to eat a meal without the shackles' weight making every movement an effort, without the mask blocking her view.

"Thank you," she whispered, when he returned to replace the restraints. She wasn't supposed to speak, and she cringed, pressing her mouth shut tight. But Arvaarad didn't comment on her transgression, just nodded, then lifted the collar to place it over her head. 

They traveled. To the wild coasts of Par Vollen, where Tal Vashoth hid in the rocks and caves. To Seheron, where the mist-choked forests sprouted enemies like mushrooms after rain. On a ship, to places whose names she never learned. Saarebas was not told where they went, or who they fought. Does a sword need to know whose flesh it cleaves? 

She was lucky--Arvaarad was kind. She was rarely beaten, and even after four years her lips remained unsewn thanks to his tolerance of her occasional slips. Sometimes, in the tent they shared, he would remove her restraints completely--if she had fought well. 

If she failed, she did not sleep but sat up, searching her mind to scour away the demon whispers that had weakened her, reciting the Cantos in whispers, the only words her mouth was allowed to form. 

They were on an island, somewhere near Rivain, when he first brought her to his bed. They had cleared the last of a band of Tal Vashoth from the area, and tomorrow they would move on. She was half-dazed with exhaustion. The last hours of the fight had wrung every spark of magic out of her, and so she did not question when Arvaarad removed not only her collar, her shackles, her chains, but continued, stripping all of her clothes as well. She wondered, as he undressed himself, what he wanted of her. And then he was back, and she knew. She was no tamassran, no priest had ordered this union, but Saarebas could not disobey Arvaarad. To do so was pain and death and separation from the Qun. So she obeyed.

It happened again, in a noisy war camp in Seheron, on a rocky coastline, in a jungle so warm and damp that she thought she would melt. She was Saarebas, it was not her purpose to give men pleasure--but he was Arvaarad, and she could not disobey. She was Saarebas, her words were dangerous, she could speak to no one of this, even had she wished to.

So she made her uneasy peace: Saarebas must obey Arvaarad without question, and that is what she would do. 

Until she felt the spark of another life kindle beneath her ribs. 

This, she would have to speak about. In the tent, after Arvaarad removed her collar, she told him. 

"I am pregnant." Three words, whispered in the dark.

Arvaarad froze, as though he had been caught by his own Leash. She watched his shoulders rise and fall in long, careful breaths before he spoke. "You are certain?"

She nodded. "My cycles have stopped. I feel a second life in me." 

Another long, slow breath. "Do nothing. I will make preparations," he said. He did not release her shackles.

Something was wrong. Something was _wrong_, but she was Saarebas and her duty was to obey Arvaarad. She would wait. 

They were in Rivain when Arvaarad led her into the tent and started rolling up their blankets, collecting his few things. He did not tell her what to do, so she sat very still and waited. "We are leaving," he whispered. He removed her collar, set it aside. "We will need to move quickly." 

This was wrong. They couldn't leave. If Saarebas left the Karataam she would be killed. But if Saarebas disobeyed Arvaarad she would be killed. There was no path for her. She felt as though a Tevinter mage had turned her to ice. She pulled heavy words out of a deep well and asked, "How can we leave?"

Arvaraad wouldn't look at her. "Do as I say," he hissed, quiet but intense. "And be silent."

They sat in silence, long enough that she had recited four whole Cantos before Arvaarad stood. "Come," he said. He did not put her collar back on. 

_Wrong_, this was _wrong_, the words ran through her head, repeating over and over. She followed him out of the tent, away from the fire, into the thick woods. Saarebas follows Arvaarad. That was right. 

This had to be right, or what was she?

**Author's Note:**

> THE QUN IS FUCKING HORRIFYING, Y'ALL
> 
> (the girl Saarebas in this story is the mother of my mage Adaar Inquisitor, [WIP over here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18576370/chapters/44035927)


End file.
